Remembering Aaliyah

I’m a huge fan of Aaliyah and it really broke my heart when I heard about her death. I remember where I was at the time…I was working at Subway when the announcement came across the airwaves that singer & actress Aaliyah plane has crashed and she and her crew all parished. Wow, that broke me down a fellow Detroiter who we were all so proud of. I just couldn’t grasp the concept that she was really gone. As hard as it was to accept it was true. It’s like a good friend or family member has passed and your trying to come to terms with it. But in the midist of our great lost of a very beautiful soul- we are left with what could have been if she was still with us. I’m so happy that we have her music and films to look back on. Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born on January 16, 1979, in Brooklyn, New York. Raised in Detroit, Michigan, Aaliyah competed unsuccessfully on the television program Star Search at the tender age of 11. Later that same year, she performed with R&B legend Gladys Knight, the former wife of her uncle and manager, Barry Hankerson, at a five-night stand in Las Vegas.

In Arabic, the name Aaliyah means “highest, most exalted one.”.

In 1994, at the age of 15, Aaliyah catapulted onto the R&B charts with herself titled debut album, Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number. Produced by the soul R&B singer R. Kelly, her album quickly sold a million copies and eventually earned platinum status based largely on the success of two hit singles, “Back and Forth” and “At Your Best (You Are Love).” Later that year, tabloids reports surfaced claiming that the sultry teen singer had married the 27-year-old Kelly, but Aaliyah denied the union and the marriage was reportedly annulled. You know her family wasn’t going for that. And that just gave us all an inside into what was to come for Robert Kelly, in the years to come with a teen girl and a sex tape.

While a student in the dance program at Detroit High School for the Fine and Performing Arts (she graduated in 1997), Aaliyah released her sophomore album, One in a Million (1996). Helmed by the well-known pop producer Timbaland and featuring rap performer Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott, One in a Million portrayed the 17-year-old singer as a sultry hip-hop chanteuse with a self-confidence well beyond her years. The album garnered favorable reviews and sold two million copies. I know I have all her cds and love them still to this day.

Aaliyah gained even more recognition babay, in 1997 when she recorded “Journey to the Past,” the Academy Award-nominated theme song to the animated feature Anastasia. She also performed the song for the Oscar telecast in 1998. Her next soundtrack effort, “Are You That Somebody?” for 1998’s Dr. Dolittle, starring Eddie Murphy, went to No. 1 on the R&B charts, was a pop crossover hit, and earned Aaliyah her first Grammy Award nomination.

Budding Film Career

In 2000, Aaliyah made her acting debut in the surprise action hit Romeo Must Die, starring opposite martial arts star Jet Li in a Romeo and Juliet-inspired story set in modern-day Los Angeles. She was also an executive producer of the movie’s soundtrack and performed the hit single “Try Again,” which earned her a second Grammy nomination as well as two MTV Music Video Awards for Best Female Video and Best Video From a Film.

Her third album, Aaliyah, was released in July 2001 and reached No. 2 on the Billboard album chart. Also in 2001, she played the title role in Queen of the Damned, based on the bestselling novel by Anne Rice and set for release in 2002. She scored a major casting coup when she signed to appear in two upcoming sequels to the blockbuster sci-fi thriller The Matrix, starring Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne. But since her passing the role went to Jada Pickett Smith.

Tragic Death

Tragically, Aaliyah was killed on August 25, 2001, when a small Cessna passenger plane carrying the singer and her video crew crashed and burst into flames shortly after takeoff from Abaco Island in the Bahamas, where they had just completed work on Rock the Boat video. The plane was headed for Miami, Florida. Aaliyah and seven other people, including the pilot, were believed to have died instantly, while a ninth passenger died later at a Bahamian hospital. Aaliyah was 22 years old at the time of her death. She is survived by her parents, Diane and Michael Haughton, and an older brother, Rashaad.